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WASHINGTON — President Trump was informed more than two weeks ago that his national security adviser, Michael T. Flynn, had not told the truth about his interactions with Russia’s ambassador, and the president eventually asked for Mr. Flynn’s resignation after concluding he could not be trusted, a White House official said on Tuesday.

Sean Spicer, the White House press secretary, said the president’s team had been “reviewing and evaluating this issue with respect to General Flynn on a daily basis for a few weeks trying to ascertain the truth.” While Mr. Trump and his advisers ultimately concluded that there was no violation of law, the president decided Mr. Flynn could no longer serve in his position.

“The evolving and eroding level of trust as a result of this situation and a series of other questionable instances is what led the president to ask for General Flynn’s resignation,” Mr. Spicer said at his daily briefing. He did not elaborate on the “other questionable instances.”

As leaders of both parties indicated that Congress would investigate, Mr. Spicer’s comments were the first public confirmation by the White House that Mr. Trump was aware of the allegations against Mr. Flynn before they were reported last week. They also contradicted the previous description of the national security adviser’s abrupt departure on Monday night, attributing the decision to Mr. Trump rather than Mr. Flynn.

The issue traced back to a telephone call between Mr. Flynn, then Mr. Trump’s designated national security adviser, and Sergey I. Kislyak, the Russian ambassador to the United States, in December. Mr. Flynn later told Mike Pence, then the vice president-elect, and others on the incoming White House team that the conversation did not include any discussion of sanctions being imposed on Russia by the departing president, Barack Obama, over interference in American elections.

Mr. Pence and Mr. Spicer passed along this account to the public. But the telephone conversation was intercepted by the American intelligence apparatus that typically monitors Russian diplomats, and a transcript reviewed by the Justice Department showed that sanctions did, in fact, come up.

In his resignation letter, Mr. Flynn did not acknowledge intentionally lying but said, “I inadvertently briefed the vice president-elect and others with incomplete information about my phone calls with the Russian ambassador.”

But in an interview on Monday just hours earlier with The Daily Caller, a conservative news site, Mr. Flynn had defiantly insisted that he “crossed no lines” and expressed outrage at leaks about his call. He said he had the backing of Mr. Trump, who “expressed confidence” in him and told him to “go out and talk more” to defend himself.

By Mr. Spicer’s account, Sally Q. Yates, an Obama administration holdover serving as the acting attorney general, contacted Donald F. McGahn II, the new White House counsel, on Jan. 26 to give him “a heads up” about the discrepancy. Other officials have said that Ms. Yates warned the White House that Mr. Flynn had exposed himself to potential blackmail by Russia, since Moscow knew what had been said during the telephone call — differing from his public account.

Mr. Trump was told “immediately,” Mr. Spicer said, and directed Mr. McGahn to look into the matter. After an “extensive review” that lasted several days, Mr. McGahn concluded that nothing in the conversation violated federal law, Mr. Spicer said.

But the president was then left to determine whether he could still trust Mr. Flynn, a retired Army lieutenant general and former head of the Defense Intelligence Agency. Mr. Spicer said Mr. Flynn stuck to his original account, making matters worse. “In a series of questioning that was rather exhaustive over a long period of time, he continued to maintain that had not occurred,” Mr. Spicer said.

“We got to a point not based on a legal issue, but based on a trust issue, with the level of trust between the president and General Flynn had eroded to the point where he felt he had to make a change,” Mr. Spicer said. “The president was very concerned that General Flynn had misled the vice president and others.”

Asked if Mr. Trump had instructed Mr. Flynn to talk about sanctions with Mr. Kislyak, Mr. Spicer said, “No, absolutely not.” Asked if Mr. Trump knew that the issue had come up before the Justice Department told the White House, Mr. Spicer said, “No, he was not aware.”

Mr. Spicer emphasized that there was “nothing wrong” with Mr. Flynn talking with representatives of other countries during the transition to prepare for the new president taking office, and in fact Mr. Trump wanted him to.

“The Intelligence Committee is already looking at Russian involvement in our election and they have broad jurisdiction over the intel community writ large and they can look at whatever they choose to,” said Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Senate majority leader, approving a broadening of the existing probe.

Democrats in Congress rushed to demand an investigation, arguing that Mr. Flynn’s departure did not resolve the matter. “Right now, there are way more questions than answers on President Trump’s relationship with Russia,” said Senator Christopher S. Murphy, Democrat of Connecticut.

Representative Adam Smith of Washington, the ranking Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee, said the episode raised “grave questions about who in the White House knew about Flynn’s vulnerability to blackmail and exploitation by the Russian government, and when they knew about it.”

“If anyone in the White House knew about Flynn’s vulnerability and chose not to act, they exercised inexcusably poor judgment that put the security of our country at enormous risk,” he added.

Republicans were less eager to talk about the issue. Representative Adam Kinzinger of Illinois, one of the few to comment publicly, said the cover-up was worse than the crime. “It was a bad decision to call Russia and talk about this in the middle of, you know, the past administration determining what sanctions are going to look like,” he said on Fox News. “But what happened, the big problem is when he lied to the vice president.”